Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/553

Rh relation to our organs," are "external to our organism," and are, therefore, according to passage in p. 881, not immediately known; and yet, according to passage in p. 810, they are "objects of immediate cognition to the natural realist." Does not this re quire some amendment? The truth is, that your distinction of presentative and representative knowledge is no distinction at all, both species of cognition being equally presentative and equally representative. Both in perception and in imagination the sole immediate object is our own organism; the only difference being that in perception the immediate object refers to, or implies, a present external object not immediately known; while in imagination the immediate object refers to, or implies, an absent external object not immediately known. Is not that your doctrine? What, then, becomes of the distinction between presentation and representation, between perception and imagination, if in both cases both a near and a remote object are or may be involved? You expressly state that the sole immediate object in perception is the organism; all that lies beyond is mediate. The organism is also the sole immediate object in imagination; all that lies beyond is mediate. How, then, can these two powers be discriminated as presentative (immediate) and representative (mediate)?

The argument by which you find an immediate non-ego in the organism I do not meddle with at present. But it seems to me that this argument, if sound, would be sufficient to establish your natural